"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Monday, August 26, 2013

No United States President in history has had as many false and
malicious rumors spread about him. As part of an ongoing public service
commitment by this website, we present our series of articles debunking right-wing myths.Myth: Obama’s thesis paper is sealed

Reality: Obama did not
actually write the kind of ‘thesis’ that some universities require for
graduation, and accordingly there are none on file. Obama did write a
‘thesis’ about nuclear disarmament for an honors course his senior year,
but reporter have already been told that Obama did not keep a copy and
as reported by Snopes back in 2008, Columbia had not retained a copy either. NBC News
contacted Professor Michael Baron, his former professor back in 2008
but he advised he thought it had been tossed out during a move he made
back in 2000.

Myth: Obama’s College records are sealed from Occidental College, Columbia and Harvard

Reality: Pursuant to theFamily Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974,
it would be illegal under federal law for Occidental, Columbia or
Harvard to release the records of any student to reporters or member of
the general public without specific written permission from said
student. Obama has not released those records, but neither has any
other presidential candidate in history.

Myth: Obama’s Selective Service Registration is sealed

Reality: This myth is
actually pretty moot since there has not been a draft in the United
States since 1972, the year Obama turned 11. Nevertheless, Obama’s
Selective Service registration is public. His registration number is
61-1125539-1 and was registered by Obama on September 4, 1980 as confirmedby the Selective Service Administration and has been posted publicly.

Reality: Obama routinely discloseda
full list clients for the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard
where he worked while serving in the state senate although he did not
release the list of specific clients he worked for personally. However,
while campaigning in 2008 he did confirm several specific clients when asked to include the liberal organization Acorn, who he represented in 1995.

Monday, August 19, 2013

The oil and gas boom in Texas has produced an unintended effect: The state plans to covert some roads to gravel to save money.The oversized vehicles and overweight loads used by energy companies
has had a devastating impact on many roads, but the state has not
appropriated enough money to fix them.The Texas Department of Transportation began converting more than 80 miles of paved roads to gravel on Monday, according to the Texas Tribune. The speed limit on the new gravel roads will be reduced to 30 mph.Texas lawmakers approved $225 million for the repair of roadways and
bridges within the state highway system this year. Texas lawmakers also
approved a ballot measure that would provide $1.2 billion a year for
state transportation projects. If approved by voters in 2014, the
measure would divert money from the state’s rainy day fund to the state
highway fund.But the Texas Department of Transportation said $400 million was
needed to repair immediate damage caused by energy sector traffic across
the state. The department said it needed an additional $1 billion per
year to keep the roadways in good condition. It won’t get that funding
until next year.“Since paving roads is too expensive and there is not enough funding
to repave them all, our only other option to make them safer is to turn
them into gravel roads,” spokesman David Glessner told the Texas
Tribune.

Natural gas is claimed to promise cleaner, more efficient combustion
than its petroleum-based competition, but getting natural gas out of the
ground through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) can be far more
environmentally menacing than getting oil. Now, as many as 30 Texas
towns could be learning that the hard way, as the towns’ water supplies
have been diverted for fracking. Before you feel too bad for them, read
the story, below, originally published on Gas2.

Texas is Fracked: More than 30 Towns Will be Out of Water due to Fracking

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Things got heated for Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) during a town hall
question-and-answer session in Winter Haven, Florida on Thursday. His
constituents called him out over his multiple votes to repeal the
Affordable Care Act, as well as misleading claims that the law’s
consumer protections are being dismantled by the Obama administration. Webster was responding to several constituents’ questions about the
consequences that repealing Obamacare — which House Republicans,
including Webster, have voted to do on 40 separate occasions — would
have for the people in his district. Attendees asked Webster if he had
any plans to replace consumer protections included in Obamacare, such as
guaranteed insurance coverage for Americans with pre-existing medical
conditions and free preventative health screenings for seniors:

QUESTIONER: What happens to us when Obamacare is repealed?
What happens to people with pre-existing conditions that can’t get
health care? What happens to those of us who finally have access to
health insurance for the first time in nine or ten years? What happens
to us? And you want to make this local, I’ll make this local. I’m a constituent, right now I can’t get health care. I’m waiting for this [insurance marketplace] to open and I’d like to know why we keep repealing [Obamacare]?

The congressman defended his repeal votes by saying the law would
drive up Americans’ health care costs by requiring insurers to cover
people with pre-existing conditions. He then claimed that President
Barack Obama himself thinks his signature law is unworkable. As
evidence, Webster implied that the law’s protections — such as its cap
on consumers’ annual out-of-pocket medical costs — were being dismantled
by the Obama administration. That prompted an outcry from the audience,
as people booed and countered Webster’s claims.An event official interrupted at that point, asking the audience to
be respectful and give Webster a chance to speak. One audience member
replied by saying, “Well, tell him to stop lying!”Watch it, courtesy of advocacy group Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and its local Florida partner Organize Now

A Tennessee tea party Republican state legislator told a frightened
little girl at a town hall meeting on Thursday in Murfreesboro, TN that
laws are laws and that her undocumented father is going to have to be
deported. According to ProgressivePopulist.org, 11-year-old Josie Molina told state Rep. Scott Desjarlais (R) that she has papers but her father does not. During a question and answer session at the meeting, Molina stepped
up to the microphone and, with a quavering voice, asked, “Mr.
DesJarlais, I have papers, but I have a dad who’s undocumented. What can
I do to have him stay with me?”Rather than make any attempt to assuage the girl’s fears, Desjarlais
said, “Thank you for being here and thank you for coming forward and
speaking,” but “the answer still kind of remains the same, that we have
laws and we need to follow those laws and that’s where we’re at.”The tea party crowd whooped and applauded wildly as the little girl
took her seat, head down. Progressive Populist reported that Josie
Molina’s father is currently in the process of being deported and that
the girl is seeing a child psychologist in order to cope with the stress
and anxiety.Desjarlais is a former physician and anti-choice crusader who was
fined $500 by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners after it came to
light that he had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs with female patients.
When one woman became pregnant, the staunch anti-abortion conservative
pressured her into terminating the pregnancy. Another patient charged
that Desjarlais prescribed narcotic painkillers to her for recreational use and frequently smoked marijuana with her.“I know God has forgiven me” for the transgressions, Desjarlais told a conservative radio host in an interview in December of 2012.
Watch video of the exchange, embedded below via the National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Porn is not meant to be a guidebook
Adult star and sex educator, Nina Hartley, has told how porn should not
be viewed as guidebook or a replacement for a comprehensive sexual
education. Is it shocking not to have a sex life?
Sophie Fontanel's sex life fascinates France. The reason? For 12 years
it was non-existent. As her bestselling book is published in Britain she
reveals why society finds celibacy so scandalous

The top 8 political sex scandals
When a scandal breaks, several questions invariably arise: Should this
scandal matter? Should the media focus on it? Should voters be concerned
about it? Politician wants to outlaw oral sex
U.S. Republican Ken Cuccinelli seeks to reinstate unconstitutional
'Crimes Against Nature' law, which could makes felons out of even
consenting married couples

Monday, August 12, 2013

Well this will be fun! Noodle-brained jackanape Ben Shapiro is teaming up with crankypants David Horowitz to launch something called TruthRevolt.org,
described as “the conservative counterpunch to Media Matters.” To which
yr Wonkette can only say: THANK YOU! We are going to have so much fun
wading through what is sure to be yet one more fever swamp of
conservative lunacy and bullshit that we are not ashamed to say we peed
in our sweatpants when we read about this. (Also we really need to get
out more.)Media Matters has long been the Moby Dick to whichever conservative
fancies himself as Ahab at any given moment, which has led to all sorts
of awesome slurs directed against it: Soros-funded! Obama-linked! (MMFA
was founded in 2004, well over two years before Obama announced he would
seek the presidency – or so the Manchurian Kenyan’s handlers would have us believe!)
It’s no surprise that the conservative leviathan would vomit up two of
its more annoyingly loud and sneering acolytes to lead the latest
whaling voyage.Shapiro’s announcement could not be more hilarious in its hyperbolic, unhinged ranting: READ MORE »

Friday, August 02, 2013

We here at this little mommyblog sometimes take issue with the
wingnut wing of the Republican Party, what with their
scandal-non-scandals, hyping of misinformation, and the occasional
outright lie because of deep-seated racismsurface-level racism
being awful human beings. But every now and then along comes a sad,
pathetic Congresscritter who has truly gone over the edge of sanity and
begun frothing at the mouth and ranting incoherently to the point that
we feel pity rather than anger. The Hill depicts one of these sad shells of a human being:

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is accusing the
Obama administration of a massive cover-up in the deadly Benghazi
terrorist attack, saying it was “dispersing” witnesses around the
country and changing their names in an effort to hide the truth about
what happened.

This makes us want to get him a glass of warm milk, encourage him to
take his meds, and just go to bed. There there, Trey, there there. No,
it’s ok – we sprinkled magic fairy Reagan dust, so there are no librul monsters under your bed, rest easy and dream of “Dr.” Beck.READ MORE »

Please stop masturbating
Puberty is rough, rougher still when you ignore your mother's warnings to stop wiping jizz on her nice bathroom towels. Take your sex toys to work day
Things changed quite dramatically a few weeks back, when an unexpected
conversation lead to my sex toys taking an unexpected trip to my
workplace

Feminist Porn as a label
When it comes to feminist porn. There's such a diversity of ideas,
creative expression, lived experiences and definitions that trying to
pin anything down is naturally difficult Best Essay: Sex After 50
My story is that, in my late 50s, I started having the best sex of my life!